An air conditioner for vehicles is an interior part of a car that is installed for the purpose of cooling or heating an interior of a car during a summer season or a winter season or removing a frost formed on a windshield during rainy weather or the winter season, and the like, to allow a driver to secure a front and rear sight. The air conditioner usually includes both of the heating system and the cooling system to optionally introduce external air or internal air, heat or cool the air, and then send the air to an interior of a car, thereby cooling, heating, or ventilating the interior of a car.
A general refrigerating cycle of the air conditioner includes an evaporator that absorbs heat from a surrounding area, a compressor that compresses a refrigerant, a condenser that discharges heat to the surrounding area, an expansion valve that expanding the refrigerator. In the cooling system, the refrigerator in a gaseous state that is introduced into the compressor from the evaporator is compressed at high temperature and high pressure by the compressor, liquefaction heat is discharged to the surrounding area while the compressed refrigerant in a gaseous state is liquefied by passing through the condenser, the liquefied refrigerant is in a low-temperature and low-pressure wet saturated steam state by again passing through the expansion valve, and is again introduced into the evaporator and vaporized to absorb vaporization heat and cool the surrounding air, thereby cooling the interior of a car.
Numerous researches for allowing representative heat exchangers, such as a condenser, an evaporator, and the like, that are used in the cooling system to more effectively exchange heat between air outside the heat exchanger and a heat exchange medium in the heat exchanger, that is, a refrigerant, have been steadily conducted. The most direct effect in cooling the interior of a car is shown in an evaporator efficiency. In particular, various structural researches and developments for improving a heat exchange efficiency of the evaporator have been conducted.
As one of the improved structures to increase the heat exchange efficiency of the evaporator, a double evaporation structure, in which a core including a tube and a pin doubly forms a first column and a second column that are a space in which a refrigerant flows individually, is proposed as an example.
As the related art, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-062452 (“Air conditioner for vehicles, Feb. 29, 2000), Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-308384 (“Ejector cycle, Nov. 4, 2005), and the like, disclose a form similar to a double evaporator in which a refrigerant independently flows in the first column and the second column, respectively.
Meanwhile, an example of the evaporator having the double evaporation structure is illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2. (FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the evaporator and FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a flow within the first column and the second column of the evaporator illustrated in FIG. 1).
An evaporator 1 illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2 is configured to form a first header tank 11 and a second header tank 12 formed in parallel with each other, being spaced apart from each other by a predetermined distance and including at least one baffle 13 that is partitioned by a barrier rib to form a first column and a second column to partition each of the first compartment and the second compartment in a width direction and partition a space in a length direction; a first inlet 41 that is connected with one portion of the first compartment of the first header tank 11 to introduce a flowing refrigerant into the first column and a first outlet 42 that is connected with the other portion of the first compartment of the first header tank 11 to discharge the refrigerant; a second inlet 43 that is connected with the other portion of the second compartment of the first header tank 11 to introduce a flowing refrigerant into the second column and a second outlet that is connected with one portion of the second compartment of the second header tank 12 to discharge the refrigerant; a plurality of tubes 20 of which both ends are fixed to the first header tank 11 and the second header tank 12; and a pin 30 interposed between the tubes 20.
Referring to FIG. 2, in the first column of the evaporator 1, a refrigerant is introduced into the first compartment of the first header tank 11 through the first inlet 41 to move to the first compartment of the second header tank 12 through a tube 20 and again move to the first compartment of the first header tank 11 through the remaining tubes 20 and then is discharged through the first outlet 42.
In addition, in the second column, a refrigerant is introduced into the second compartment of the first header tank 11 through the second inlet 43 to move to the second compartment of the second header tank 12 through a tube 20 and again the second compartment of the first header tank 11 through the remaining tubes 20 and is discharged through the second outlet.
In other words, in the evaporator 1 illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, the refrigerants of the first column and the second column flow individually. To this end, two inlets 41 and 43 and two outlets 42 and 44 for introducing and discharging the refrigerant into and from the first column and the second column must be provided.
Therefore, in the evaporator having the double evaporation structure with four pipes forming the inlets and the outlets need to be connected with one another, and therefore manufacturing costs for manufacturing and fixing them would increase. In particular, as illustrated in FIG. 1, in case of using a separate pipe fixing part for connecting and fixing the four pipes, the foregoing problem would be more serious.
Further, in the evaporator having the double evaporation structure with the pipe itself takes up a lot of interior space of an engine room to hinder the miniaturization of the evaporator and reduce a heat exchange region as much, thereby degrading the cooling performance.
Therefore, a need exists for a development of an evaporator having high heat exchange efficiency, high manufacturing performance, and miniaturization.